Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Interparental Processes When Coparenting Two Children

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Sarah E. DeMartini,Nancy L. Hazen
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12470

S E. DMCalifornia State University, Chico

N L. HUniversity of Texas at Austin

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Interparental

Processes When Coparenting Two Children

Background: Little is known about coparenting

processes for two parents with two children, as

observational studies of coparenting in families

of four are virtually nonexistent.

Objective: The aim of the present study was

to use observational methods to examine

coparenting process in 52 families of four

(mother–father–older child–younger child;

N=208 subjects).

Method: Mothers’ and fathers’ support of their

partner and involvement with both childrenwere

examined in relation to the mothers’and fathers’

cooperative coparenting. Observations were of

25-minute home interactions that were rated

using a newly developed coding system based on

previous research with families of three.

Results: Results largely replicatedndings from

studies of coparenting in families of three (i.e.,

two parents and one child) in that higher lev-

els of cooperative coparenting were related to

both parents’ higher involvement in coparent-

ing and mutual support of their partner. How-

ever, signicant interaction effects in families

with two children revealed cooperative copar-

enting as more nuanced than in families with

one child. Interactions indicated that coopera-

tive coparenting was highest when both parents’

involvement was high. Cooperative coparenting

Department of Psychology, California State

University–Chico, 400 W. First Street, Chico, CA

95929–0234 (sedemartini@csuchico.edu).

Key Words: cooperative coparenting,families of four, family

systems, involvement, partner support.

was lowest when both parents showed low sup-

port for one another, as well as when moth-

ers showed low support of fathers and fathers

showed low involvement.

Conclusions: Results of this study reveal sev-

eral commonalities in the coparenting of one

child versus two children, as well as several

notable differences. Results suggest that coop-

erative coparenting of two children may often

require “all hands on deck”to provide adequate

attention and resources for two young lives. Our

ndings also suggest that cooperative copar-

enting can still occur when one parent shows

low behavioral support of the other or when a

father’s involvement is low, as long as the part-

ner is highly supportive.

Implications: Implications for family interven-

tion and future directions for research in this

area are discussed.

Cooperative coparenting, also referred to as

supportive coparenting, is characterized by

parents working together as a cohesive team.

Parents can support each other as cooperative

coparents by facilitating play between their part-

ner and their children, as well as demonstrating

an ability to adapt to and facilitate their part-

ner’s parentingagendas(McHale et al., 2000).

A substantial amount of coparenting research

has focused on cooperative coparenting in

couples across the transition to parenthood

and has examined its relation to marital sat-

isfaction(e.g.,Kuoet al., 2017a),positive

parentingpractices(e.g.,Pedroet al., 2012),

Family Relations 70 (July 2021): 777–792777

DOI:10.1111/fare.12470

778 Family Relations

and positive socioemotional outcomes for their

rstborn child (e.g., Scrimgeour etal.,2013;

Umemuraet al., 2015).However,although

80% of American families have more than

one child (U.S. Census, 2009), family systems

research is only beginning to scratch the sur-

face concerning how coparenting functions

in families with two parents and two young

children. Empirical attention needs to be placed

on observing quadratic (parent–parent–older

child–younger child) family interactions (Song

&Volling, 2015;Volling, 2012).Inaneffort

to better understand how parents cooperatively

coparent two children, the present study offers

the novel contribution of extending literature

on self-report studies of families of four to

include an exploration of the inner workings

of cooperative coparenting via whole-family

observations. This study also extends literature

on observations of families of three to families

of four (couples with two children) by using

an at-home whole-family (mother–father–older

child–younger child) observation to examine the

dynamics of cooperative coparenting and indi-

vidual parent behaviors within families of four.

E C R 

F  F

Conceptual Background

The introduction of a second child into a family,

albeit a normative family transition, requires

major shifts in family dynamics (Volling, 2012).

Family systems theorists conceptualize the

family not only in terms of the relationships

that comprise it (e.g., parent–child, marital,

sibling) but also by emphasizing the impor-

tance of the whole family unit, which cannot

be reduced to the sum of its constituent parts

(Minuchin, 1985).Afamilyofthree,with

two parents and one child, comprises three

dyadic relationships (marital, mother–child, and

father–child) and one triadic, whole-family rela-

tionship. After a second child is introduced into

a family of three, new relationships emerge and

the complexity of family dynamics increases, as

the family system now includes six dyadic, four

triadic, and one quadratic relationship. Indeed,

the complexity of the quadratic family unit is

a likely reason why coparenting in families of

four is understudied. Studies of triadic family

interactions indicate that dyadic family interac-

tions (mother–child, father–child, and couple)

often change in the presence of the third family

member, so whole-family dynamics cannot

be understood by simply summing separate

dyadic family interactions (Murphy et al., 2017;

Stroud et al., 2015). For instance, a mother and

a father might have a conictual relationship in

private, but in the presence of a child, the couple

could be amicable. Thus, the introduction of

a second child to a family of three introduces

new challenges and possibilities that may alter

the dynamics of the coparenting relationship.

Renegotiations of family roles are likely to

occur, and couples may coparent differently

with two children than they did with one.

The idea that the birth of a second child

may have a signicant impact on each parents’

role within the family system has been rmly

established by research demonstrating that the

transition to parenthood requires considerable

adjustment in parents’ roles (e.g., Lawrence

et al., 2007).Althoughspecicpatternsof

readjustment in household and childcare tasks

have been suggested (e.g., Kreppner,1988),

their impact on the quality of coparenting two

children is a relatively uncharted territory.

Adjustments in parenting responsibilities for

parents with two children may affect how par-

ents work in cooperation with or in competition

with each other to raise their child, as well as

how mothers and fathers interact as individ-

uals within the coparenting relationship (e.g.,

Kreppner etal.,1982). For example, given the

increased demands of caring for two children,

increases in father involvement in coparenting

and in each parents’ mutual support of each other

during coparenting may become increasingly

important to establishing cooperative copar-

enting. On the other hand, some fathers might

feel “forced” into parenting responsibilities

out of necessity, as opposed to adopting these

responsibilities willingly, in which case it would

be less likely that higher father involvement

would relate to more cooperative coparenting

(e.g., Livingston & Parker, 2019).

Cooperative Coparenting

Cooperative coparenting, in which parents sup-

port and facilitate each other in the context of

coparenting, is considered to be the ideal style

of coparenting for couples (McHale et al., 2000;

McHale& Lindahl, 2011).Cooperativecopar-

enting has been identied as a protective fam-

ily dynamic across the transition to having a